Archway of Naroc

Negotiations

Alex, Amanda, Fang ,Naoki, Scott and Vladim were at the cave they were told to find the hooded figures. They had 2 squads of 10 soldiers outside with 2 Chinook outside. The 5 walked into the cave and found a small town worth of people inside. "What the heck? I was expecting a group of soldiers, not, elderly people, kids and bandaged people." Scott said.

"Stay alert, I don't want us surprised attacked." Amanda said. A figure in a cloak stood at the door to the only building in the cave. "Ah, good, you arrived, I will tell the leader." the figure said, walking in the building. After a few minutes, a small child size figure approached Vladim. "What do you want kid?" He asked, somewhat annoyed. The child held their stomach and there was a growl of hunger from him.

"Your hungry? So what? I can't help." Vladim said. Naoki hit his stomach with her elbow. "I saw you packing your bag with spam, you have like 5 pounds in that bag of yours, and no one except a Russian can stomach more than a can of that stuff." Fang said.

Vladim rolled his eyes and took out a can and opened it, before handing it to the child. The child ran over to 2 other cloaked figures and they ate the canned meat. "I feel bad for them, any ideas how many there are?" Alex asked. "I counted 30 in the first area of the cave, my best guessed is around 100 people, if I assume that some were hiding and they spread through the cave." Scott said.

"Echo team, this is 2-8, we have 3 cloaked figures outside the cave looking at us, what do we do?" a soldier asked from the radio with Fang. "Only engage if a weapon is seen, and they try and attack." Fang said.

The cloaked figure walked out of the building and said, "We can only let 2 enter, or our leader could come out here for you to meet him." the figure said. "We all would like to talk to him, so that we know our friends are safe. A figure, with a goblet with a circle that had 3 tails coming off it, on his cloak walked out. "Hello again, so, you really do care for your men." the figure said. "Yes, now where are they?" Amanda said. The figure with the symbol whistled and Dravock, Astrois, and Magnus were lead out of a tunnel.

They looked unharmed but Dravock was shaking like he was freezing. Astrois looked like all the fur around his bull helmet was braided along with Magnus's beard. "Is it me, or do they all have braids?" Fang asked. Alex and Scott looked over and laughed. "They do, and Magnus, you look ridiculous." Scott said, laughing. Amanda and Alex rolled their eyes before Vladim said, "Now, what do you want so we can have our squad member, friend and elf back?"

"We only want one thing, We want safety, We want to be taken to the Wind Wall, my people need safty, and the empire of man will use us, they don't see us for who we are." the figure said, pulling down the hood to the cloak showed what appeared to be human, but, had cloth stitched over his face. "We are Humunculy, made my magic, and used as puppets by the empire, expendable tools." The man said. Several people lowered their hoods to show cloth and skin, mixed and some had bones showing.

The child that Fang gave the spam to, had half of his face while a skull showed. "Please, we need your help, we are willing to help where ever we can, we only took your friends so we could talk to you, we don't want to fight, few of us can even travel far before collapesing, we are just as human as any person, yet, no one sees us like that." the man said.

"We can try but, I doubt many of the people at our base, we wish we could but-" Amanda said when her radio went off. "RANGER COOK, WE HAVE 20 TARGT'S APPROACHING ON HORSE BACK, FLAGS OF A BOAR ARE BEING FLOWN, WHAT DO WE DO!" a man yelled. "Shot the horses, if they continue charging, you may disable but do not kill, we need to question them." Amanda said.

"How many are there of you here?" Alex asked. "We have 50 people here, only 15 are able to defend though." The man said. "We have guys outside to defend, but were getting as many of you out of here as soon as we can, but we will need to wait, we will need our friends first, We will clear the area and than get you out of here." Amanda said, as Fang and Vladim ran out of the cave. The rest ran out and saw that the 20 people charging were women. They had reached the group and held the 20 soldiers at spear point

"Astrois of the maze, where is he?" a woman asked. "Why do you ask?" Vladim said, putting his gun and pulling a pickaxe out of his bag. "We are here to retrieve him for the honor of lady Wolf, she demands to see him." the woman said. Fang shot her gun up. "Now, how about this, instead of killing each other, ladies, we have 50 people who want to move to Wind Wall, our friend is freezing out cause he has no way of keeping himself warm, and these idiots are going to need more training, and by the fact you still have your horses, they have the accuracy of a stormtrooper." Fang said. "Now, how about this, we go to wind wall and discuss this, cause I AM OUT OF PATIENCE!" she yelled. "Ok, we will go to wind wall, and meet you for this discussion with our lady." the woman said. "Good, now, GET YOUR ASSES OUT OF HERE BEFORE I COUNT TO 10!!!!!" Fang yelled. The women left and the humunculy loaded into one Chinook wile the soldiers, Astrois, Dravock and the others loaded in.